


Not Proud

by MiladyDeWinter (Techno_Queen)



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: But that doesn't go so well, Character Study, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Gen, Guardians are jerks too, Jack is tied to his season in more ways than one, Not much of a plot, also fire spirits are jerks, oh and someone dies, so he's kinda cold and emotionless, this story kinda petered out halfway through, until the Guardians find him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-06 23:44:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13422144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Techno_Queen/pseuds/MiladyDeWinter
Summary: Jack isn't proud of what he does. He kills, he hurts, he maims. He is winter, and he is dangerous, frozen like the season he controls.The Guardians change that. They bring warmth into his heart and emotions into his life. They change everything.Whether they change it for the better is debatable.





	1. Chapter 1

_“We are rarely proud when we are alone.”_ \--Voltaire

~=~  
...  
.....  
...  
~=~  
He is not proud of what he does. It is not for nothing, after all, that winter is known as the season of death and eternal sleep, that he and his ilk are thought of as cruel and dangerous, that others shun him and deride him. It is not for nothing that he is considered a menace, and it is not for nothing that he has remained alone, so alone, for the past three centuries. 

The blunt, harsh, unfeeling truth of it all is that winter _is_ deadly. It _is_ hazardous. It is made to destroy warmth and happiness, to either kill or stupefy all living things, to drive all warm-loving creatures far away from the bitter cold and the callous chill. It is meant to stifle hope, wonder, memories, dreams, and fun, to stamp them out until nothing but raw despair is left behind, and while he may temper and calm it when he can, he cannot tame it or soften the blow. Winter is wild and uncontrollable, and even he, its lord and master, oftentimes cannot quite rein it in.

Perhaps it is this very fact, that he is _the_ Spirit of Winter, _the_ Winter King, _the_ Suzerain of Winter and _the_ Lord of Winter, that he cannot control his own season. “Like season, like spirit” goes the saying, and as winter is heartless and treacherous, so Jack is very much the same. He sympathizes too much with his season’s temperament to fully try and discipline it, understands it _just_ a little too well to really realize where it crosses lines, and sometimes he has difficulty feeling remorseful when a blizzard rages and happens to bury an adult or two in blank, white, expressionless snow.

( _Adults,_ mind. If it is a child, he feels immeasurably guilty, ripping his own hair out in agitation. But he moves on, as all people do, and soon the frostbitten body of the child is nothing more than a hazy memory that he does his best to ignore and forget.)

He is not a monster, though, whatever others may say. He does not lack the _ability_ to feel, the _capability_ to regret and to be compassionate. It is simply that this faculty is one that he has long ago laid to rest, like a meadow that his season sends to sleep, and it lays dormant in his chest like a heavy brick that he neglects. Scorning his own emotions is a necessary defence mechanism, for if he had chosen to feel, he would have gone insane long before now, guilt and sorrow chipping away at his mind until he succumbed to the madness. No, it is far better _not_ to feel, to be frozen and hard-hearted like the season he controls, to dance recklessly with the wind and cold and be uncaring of whom he hurts. 

He is not proud of what he does, but he is not regretful either, and as long as he is not restless from guilt, he is at peace.

~=~

The Guardians change everything. Like burning brush, they scorch and melt through his shields of ice. He never felt as much as he does during Easter of ‘12, never before experienced the miscellany of emotions that he is forced to endure during those three days, never before felt grief, anger, fear, regret as much as on that day. Those emotions were muted, before, muffled and hidden away from sight, but the Guardians pull them to the surface like fishing lines reeling in trouts from a pond.

Making him the Guardian of Fun is the killing blow, the final hammer that shatters his defences. While before his heart was frozen, emotions dampened and numbed, now all of a sudden he can _feel,_ and it hurts like the stinging of a frostbitten limb that is suddenly brought close to the searing fire to be warmed.

In vain, he tries to put his armour back on, immersing himself in the blistering cold of his season. Dancing on the frigid wind quiets the pain, but it does not kill it like it used to, and as soon as he is finished with his seasonal duties every single negative emotion comes back to the surface. 

Guilt, for the people he and his season have killed. Low self-esteem, since a murderer like he cannot be a proper Guardian. Fear, that the Guardians will find out who and _what_ he is, that they would drive him away. It’s enough to drive him mad, and reminds him just why he shut himself away.

He keeps his mouth shut, however, and endures through the storm.

He is not proud. Instead, he is regretful.

~=~

The time comes, eventually, for him to reveal everything. His spies have warned him that the fire spirits are planning to attack the Winter Court and hopefully assassinate him, and though he wants to, he cannot handle this on his own. Climate change has weakened the Winter Court, and he himself is in no fit state to lead his people, emotions making his head spin and his blood ache. In a last-ditch attempt to save winter, he crawls to the Guardians for help, a move that stomps his dignity into the dust.

They listen to him, expressions closed off as he explains just who he is, what he does, and why he needs their help. Their empty eyes make him nervous, make his palms sweaty as unease grows in his chest, and he wonders if he made the right decision.

He soon finds out the answer when they ask him to resign from the Guardians. He is...not shocked, for he expected this, but he isn’t happy either. He feels vaguely disappointed in the four, as if he expected better from them.

Nevertheless, he accepts, watching dispassionately as they reverse the process that made him one of them, and when he leaves the North Pole, he is an ex-Guardian, a has-been, a failed experiment left to rot.

He is alone again, and he does not feel proud.

~=~

His discomfort is obvious when he returns to the Winter Court, and Yuki-Onna, General of the Winter Court Army and his aide-de-camp, is quick to pull him aside and ask him what is wrong.

When he tells her that the Guardians have refused to give their aid, her expression collapses like a soufflé that is taken too soon out of the oven, a mix of despair and disappointment dancing across her face. It soon clears, however, blankness taking the place of emotion, and with business-like precision she asks him what his future orders are, though not before inquiring how he is.

"I'm fine," he says, doing his best to hide the way he stutters over the words, and barrels on to give her instructions for preparing defences. He knows that she knows that he is hurt by the Guardians' betrayal, but she does not pry, for she neither cares nor wants to care.

When she finally walks away to pass on his orders to the soldiers, he slumps.

He is doing the best he can, but he is not proud.

~=~

The battle is brief, and it is winter that comes out the loser. His people try, they do, but trying is rarely enough, and this case is no exception.

Jack himself does not try, his heart heavy at the Guardians' abandonment, depriving him of the will to survive. The leader of the fire spirits corners him in a room of the Winter Palace, holding him at knife-point against the cool wall, and the blow is quick, the metal sinking into his chest with a squelch.

He does not give the other the satisfaction of hearing him scream, not that it makes much of a difference.

The fire spirit, true to form, gloats as he watches him bleed out on the carpet, and Jack leans back against the wall as he slowly sinks to the ground, powerless to do anything to aid his people as they are massacred by the enemy. His eyes gradually close as screams assail his ears, and the mocking rumble of his antagonist’s voice grates harshly on his ear.

A sudden impulse consumes him, and his head snaps upright as he glares at his killer. Somehow, he wants to have the final word, for winter is the end to all things, and he doesn’t want that taken away from him.

The thoughts are foggy in his mind as his body rises without conscious control, an icy knife forming in his hand, the blade burying itself in his tormentor's torso. He watches dispassionately as the fire spirit falls, crumples, dies, before following his example.

His eyes still blaze blue, even as he grows still, the light dimming before turning to darkness, the bleeding turning to leaking, his own cold blood mingling on the floor with the warm one of his killer. 

He dies, same as ice melts when brought close to the fire.

Still, he is not proud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is...kinda incoherent. I'm sorry. I had plans for this story, guys, but I suck at following up on them. Also, that ending is abrupt as hell.
> 
> Still, I'd love to hear if you have any suggestions/advice/criticisms to offer :) If you don't, though, that's fine.


	2. Chapter 2

At first, the Guardians are not proud of what they have to do to survive. Allowing someone new to their ranks, especially someone as volatile and undeserving as a winter spirit, is an action that leaves a bitter taste layered on their tongues, as if they swallowed cold coffee. Yet it is necessary for the sake of the children, and with reluctance in their hearts and fake glee on their faces (apart from Bunny, who makes no effort to hide his irritation) they steel themselves for the worst.

The worst does not come. Instead, they are pleasantly surprised. Jack is somewhat strange, it is true, quite unlike his murderous brethren, but he is different in a good way, focusing on the fun and joy that winter can offer, instead of the death and desolation it brings. At times, he seems distant from the situation at hand, but overall he is a better man than they expected him to be.

Certainly, there are hiccups. Bunny especially has difficulty ignoring his prejudices, his mind filled with memories of that disastrous Easter of ‘68, when he travelled to New York only to see half the city covered in several feet of snow, with numerous deaths. In the middle of it all was Jack, face perfectly blank, no sign of emotion except for anger burning in dark blue eyes as he manipulated the storm to do his bidding. 

A horrifying sight, and one that haunts Bunny to this day. One cannot blame him for being bitter.

In the end, it all works out, however, despite the momentary scare when they thought he betrayed them, and their adventure ends with the children saved, Pitch Black defeated, and a new member in their ranks, the aptly-named Guardian of Fun.

They have done well, all five of them.

For once in their lives, the Big Four are proud.

~=~

Their pride is soon replaced by concern. Something is wrong with their newest recruit, and they cannot help but be worried. 

Jack is acting...different, for lack of a better word. His exuberance feels fake, now, and more often than not the four see a pale spirit whose face is filled with vacancy, a spirit several millennia older than they know him to be, instead of the vibrant teen they have come to be familiar with. It makes them uncomfortable, for they have no idea who this new Jack is, and he scares them slightly.

As if to make matters worse, snowstorms have been appearing everywhere, violently ripping places apart as they drown the streets in snow. Sometimes, one of the four comes a little too close to one of these disturbances, and sees Jack hovering in the middle of the chaos, face expressionless and eyes grim.

It is unnerving and disquieting, but they say nothing, for they doubt that it is their place to do so. If, perchance, they also feel a little frightened of the winter spirit...well, no one needs to know that apart from them.

They are cowards, unwilling to face their troubles, and they know it.

They are not proud.

~=~

The day of reckoning comes swiftly enough, Jack crawling to them one September morning, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Without so much as a greeting or an apology, he launches into his tale, oblivious to the shock and horror that the Guardians feel as he reveals secrets long kept hidden.

They all have heard the stories, that winter spirits are evil and dangerous, that their leader is even more so. They’ve listened to stories of deaths, of pain, of frostbitten corpses left underneath pure, untouched snow, a beautiful, treacherous mantle that hides the morbid truths that lay beneath the surface.

The problem is that they should have difficulty reconciling their youngest with the fabled killer that is the Winter King. They should be disbelieving, aghast, all _‘this can’t be possible’_ and _‘there must be some mistake’,_ but...they aren’t. It is all too easy to connect the two, to associate the heartless assassin known as the Suzerain of Winter with the young man in front of them, to look at the Guardian of Fun and see only a merciless soldier who does not belong in their ranks.

It is therefore painfully easy to get rid of him, to ask him to leave forever, to consign themselves to an eternity without Jack Frost in their lives. It is for the best, after all, and the Guardians are good at hurting both themselves and others for the sake of the greater good.

When he departs, they should be relieved. Instead, they feel vaguely disappointed, though in who or what they do not know.

They turn away from the open window that he used as an exit, and they do not feel proud.

~=~

Slowly, they forget him. As time goes by, they immerse themselves further and further in their work, pushing back memories in favour of focusing on the present, and thus, they forget him. Before a few decades have passed, it is as if Jack Frost has never intruded on their lives, as if the barren snowscape that was their existence has never been marred by an outsider’s footprints.

The children do not forget him, however, and oftentimes they hear whispered rumours of his continued existence. The stories are not many or varied, but they serve to assuage the guilt that they do not know they feel, to soothe some ruffled part of them that they cannot name. Sugar-coated lies are very good at helping people to forgive themselves, and a person will take every opportunity to absolve themselves from blame, for if there is one thing that one cannot stand, it is the heavy feeling of guilt, like a brick in one’s chest.

They do not know, nor do they care to know, that Jack Frost is not actually alive at all, that the rumours are merely stories spread by the Winter Court in an effort to conceal their Lord’s death from the too-curious ears of outsiders. They do not know that their unwillingness to help someone in need has led to the death of a great warrior and an even greater friend, and moreover, they do not wish to know. They would rather hide behind their jobs and forget about the life they destroyed, than admit their wrongdoings and somehow atone for them.

They have not escaped this adventure unscathed, however. They might not realize it, but the pain still lingers, slowly eating their hearts and souls until one day they will be forced to face the truth.

They will never again feel that glorious, bright, thrilling pride that they felt when they allowed Jack into their ranks, when for the briefest of times they were not alone, when they were five instead of four. They will never again know what it is like to be proud of oneself, and perhaps...perhaps that is punishment enough. Perhaps.

They are alone, and they are not proud, nor will they ever be again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I can't find any data for a real-life Easter Blizzard of '68, I instead decided to make one up, using the Lindsay Snowstorm as reference (the Lindsay Snowstorm was a disastrous storm that occurred in the winter of 1968-1969, and affected part of the east coast of the USA. The place that suffered some of the worst damage was New York City. It is estimated that overall 94 people died in this storm).
> 
> Also, for those who might bleat that Jack is OOC...notice that I never stated that Jack was the one who caused/worsened the blizzard. For all you know, he could have been trying to alleviate it. I'm not saying that's what happened, I'm just giving you something to think about. Bunny might have the wrong end of the stick here.
> 
> Constructive criticism welcome.


End file.
